Connors pried one of my hands free and stuffed the work order in my hand. I felt the paper crinkle in my fist, wishing it were stiff enough to cut into my palm. "You don't have a choice here," he said. "Brock passed zero-grav training and the brass want him up at Branson Orbital ASAP. That means he needs a suit."

"What good is a fucking longneck going to do them up on Branson?" I asked. "Are there lightbulbs up there no one else can reach?"

"Let them fire me!" I pitched the order onto my desk. It bounced once on the spiderweb-reinforced rubber I was playing with for the next generation of Belt miners' uniforms, then came to a rest. I supposed that meant I had accepted the job. I sighed. "We never should have given them the uplift. If God had meant for dinosaurs to fly, he would have given them shorter fucking necks."

Connors reached out and tweaked my shoulder. "While you're at it, you better brush up on your robotic limbs. We've just enrolled a Tyrannosaur, and she's a goddamn genius. Be up in the air in fifteen months, tops."